Bayfield businesses boast booming summer tourism, including Americans

CTV London’s Scott Miller visited the small Huron County town to learn tariff tension didn’t keep visitors out of Bayfield this summer.

For a Thursday in September, the streets of Bayfield were alive with plenty of tourists. Not unlike most days this summer, according to downtown merchants.

“I think we was really good this year in Bayfield, since May 1 really,” said Debbie Boniface, who works at a downtown clothing store in Bayfield.

“You can ever find parking, but lots of people around. Lots of American tourists, I found this year coming up on their boats, walking around, touring around for the day.”

Canadian travel to the U.S. is down 34 per cent this summer, but according to Leslie Whitlock of Leslie’s of Bayfield, more American tourists than she expected to see came to Bayfield this summer, political tension or not.

“Lots of U.S. visitors. We’re always happy to see our U.S. friends and it was great. I’ve been here 38 years now, so I can actually say that I think we did very well this year with the numbers of people that were here. I think we were jam packed, it was great,” said Whitlock, who’s worked in Bayfield’s downtown since the 1990s.

But, just up the street, Claire Perron hardly noticed any U.S tourists stopping into the four stores she helps manage in downtown Bayfield.

“There was a lot of people coming out here recently from Calgary. And then we get a lot from Toronto and Kitchener, the bigger cities. They’re coming in,” said Perron, the manager of Avalon Boutique.

“But, yeah. As for the American side, not very much. We didn’t see them very much this year. But in all in all, it was still a pretty good season.”

Even if they don’t all agree on where tourists were coming from when they visited Bayfield this summer, most agree on one thing… It was a good summer to own a business in downtown Bayfield.

“We had a great season. Lots of people, lots of visitors from everywhere,” said Whitlock.

“I think it was one of our better ones in the last few years since COVID, and everybody’s back to traveling and so on. It’s been terrific.”

Boniface added that she noticed a lot more cars.

“I noticed a lot more traffic, and I just noticed a lot more people walking around, a lot more people who had cottages up that haven’t been up. I noticed they were up,” said Boniface.